


The Big Black Dog

by Rachaelizame



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adoption, Gen, Harry Potter was Adopted by Other(s), Harry Potter was Raised by Other(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 00:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15036716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachaelizame/pseuds/Rachaelizame
Summary: Harry Stevens lived a perfectly normal life with his perfectly normal adopted parents- until the big black dog showed up.





	1. Chapter 1

In another universe young Harry Potter was woken by the shouting match his aunt and uncle had when they brought him inside. In this universe he was only woken when his new temporary foster carer gasped at hearing the police had found the boy’s family, only they’d been recently and mysteriously murdered.

This change occurred when Officer McCullough was taking an unusual nightly walk to clear his head after a fight with his wife and caught a glimpse of young Harry on a neighbor’s front porch.

He immediately called dispatch and had an on duty officer and a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children worker dispatched to his location while he picked up the child and held it until a temporary foster mother was found and brought to the scene.

In the other universe Harry was quietly neglected in his home while his aunt silently regretted some of her life choices, but still treated him unfairly. In this universe, Harry Potter was quickly adopted by a young couple who adored him and never seriously regretted anything about him.

This information never made it to the Wizarding world at large. As far as they knew Harry Potter was being raised in a good home selected by Dumbledore personally. This may be the only fact that saved him and his parents as he grew up from being attacked by dark wizards, and thus, we must be very grateful to Xenophilius Lovegood, the only reporter who discovered Harry’s true upbringing. He did not report Harry’s disappearance, despite knowing it could be the Quibbler’s big break because he is a genuinely good man whose wife reminded him that such a thing may be quite dangerous to Harry's small family.

Thus, Lovegood simply investigated until he found the home Harry had been placed in, and never spoke a word to anyone.

However, words aren’t always necessary to spill a secret, particularly when the information seeker is a recent escapee from Azkaban- and, of course, an Animagus.

This is how Sirius Black discovered his godson’s new home.

-

Gazala Stevens and her husband John were preparing to take their young son Harry to daycare one morning shortly after adopting him. They’d decided to keep his name to honor his parents’ wishes and changed only his last name. Harry fit in well with the family, though with the natural problems Gazala and John had anticipated upon adopting a boy who may very well have seen his parents die.

He got along well with his new parents and didn’t complain much, for an infant. He even looked like a child between them would, and Gazala and John were very glad they’d found a mixed race child so he could grow up in a household that respected his heritage rather than erasing it.

They were just heading out the door when little Harry started to flail and swing his body around, eyes fixed on a nearby dog.

“Pa’foot!” He yelled. Gazala immediately looked on the ground for the small stuffed puppy that had been christened thus and gasped when she saw the living dog instead.

The dog bounded up to John, who was holding Harry at the time.

“Pa’foot!” Harry repeated, reaching down for the dog. The dog barked as though that was his actual name and sat, clearly expecting something.

“Gazala… I think he’s a stray. He’s been wandering around for the past few days, and he looks hungry.” John and Harry turned already identical pleading eyes on Gazala, and she sighed. She’d put up a fight, but she’d never be able to resist and she knew it.

“Alright, but he hurts Harry and he’s out.” Well that didn’t go as planned. Clearly their combined efforts were more dangerous than anticipated.

John was clearly surprised as well, but that quickly turned to cheering with Harry and he gestured the dog to the front door.

“Come on boy, inside. We’ll have to buy dog food later. What exactly has Harry been calling his toy, Padfoot?”

“Oh is that what he’s saying?”

“Yeah I think so. Anyway, sounds a fine name for a dog, don’t you think?”

-

John picked up dog food and a dog bed for Padfoot before getting Harry from daycare that day. He found him on the playground, where the assistant teacher, Miss Lynne was shouting loudly before gently ushering Harry away from what appeared to be a small garden snake.

“I apologize, Mr. Stevens, I don’t know how that snake got into the playground!” The lead teacher, Sally said as Lynne grabbed a shovel to remove the snake.

“Oh, no, I understand. It’s hardly your fault, and I see Lynne got him away from it quickly. Besides, it’s only a garden snake.”

Sally appeared relieved and handed Harry over to John.

“Snake!” Harry babbled to John immediately. Harry’s language skills were developing nicely. He was nearing two years old, as it had taken that long for Gazala and John to find Harry and complete the paperwork necessary to adopt him.

“Yes, Harry, I saw the snake. Did you like it?”

“Yes!”

“Well, Harry, maybe we can go see snakes at the zoo, someday. But you have to be careful around wild animals.”

“Ca’ful?”

“Yes, be very careful. They could hurt you!”

“‘Kay.”

“Now, let’s go home and see the new doggie!” John enthused, glad for a change of topic.

Harry cheered and shouted Padfoot’s name over and over as they left the daycare center.

-

The small family settled into a nice routine. Gazala or John took Harry to daycare every morning, leaving the dog at home until Harry excitedly entered the house after daycare to greet and hug the dog. Sometimes, little Harry proved the dog and frowned at him as though he was expecting him to do something any minute, but neither Gazala nor John could determine what it was.

The first close-to-full sentence Harry said was completely unintelligible to Gazala and John. It was “Padfoot person again.”

“Harry, Padfoot was never a person,” Gazala frowned, but dismissed this as a child’s imagination.

Padfoot clopped over to Harry and licked his face, somehow looking mournful.

It was that evening, as Gazala entered Harry’s bedroom on a whim to check on her little boy, that she saw Padfoot transform into a sickly thin, ragged man and screamed.


	2. Chapter 2

“Shhh!” The man hissed at her, just as John rushed into the room.

“Who are you?” John demanded. “Why’d you break into our house?”

“John! He’s, he’s,...” Gazala stammered. Padfoot turned back into a dog and back into a man. Suddenly John looked shocked as well.

“What are you?” He asked, shaken.

“I’m a wizard. I can do magic. So can your son.” 

“What?” John said.

“Oh, and I bet you’re here to take him away then! Don’t think you can. I don’t care if you can do magic, I won’t let you.”

“I won’t lie to you, I was at first. But you’re good parents, and I won’t take that from Harry again.” At those words, Gazala and John remembered that Harry’s original parents were murdered.

“If you’re magic, and he’s magic… did you know his parents?” John finally asked. The man had a terribly sad look on his face now.

“They were two of my best friends.” And that, well there was no way of faking that sadness, Gazala decided.

“Besides,” the man continued. “Plenty of magical kids grow up in non magic homes, Li- Harry’s birth mother among them.”

Just then, Harry woke, startled by the noise.

“Padfoot!” He shouted excitedly when he saw him. At that, Gazala and John finally relaxed. If Harry recognized this man, surely he must be telling the truth. How else would Harry know him than the reasons the man had given? The magic part was a little harder to swallow, but they had seen him turn into a dog and back so it wasn’t out of the realm of belief.

Harry stuck his arms out to be held, and Padfoot looked at them cautiously before taking him.

“That’s not- that can’t really be your name?” John asked.

“What, Padfoot?” The man smiled, a genuine one from what they could tell. “Nah. But my real name would still probably sound strange to you two. Magical families are usually old-fashioned.”

He reached a hand out to shake, speaking. “My name’s Sirius Black.”

-

After they got Harry back to bed, assuring him that Padfoot would still be a person tomorrow, all three adults sat down in the kitchen to have a conversation.

“Okay, so I want to believe you.” Gazala began. “Because Harry recognized you, and frankly I can’t think of any other explanation. Except maybe that you messed with his head with magic, and honestly, if you did that I’d have to kill you.”

Sirius chuckled.

“Fair enough. What do you need?”

“I need answers. Why were you a dog instead of coming here like a person, first of all?”

“That’s a loud story.”

“Well, I want to hear it.” Sirius held up his hands defensively.

“Didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you, just that it was long. And dark. Can’t forget how dark that story is. Okay, it started a long time ago, when this wizard we call You-Know-Who started going about declaring that Muggleborns- that’s magical children naturally born to non-magic parents- were lesser. He wasn’t the only one to think that and soon he started getting followers.

“Eventually it devolved into all out war between his followers and rational people- that is, those who don’t believe in blood superiority. James and Lily, Harry’s parents- er, birth parents, were on the side of the rational people. So was I.

“James and Lily eventually found out You-Know-Who was after them in particular and went into hiding using something called Fidelius. It conceals a place from the view of wizards who don’t know its address. One person outside the house has to know the address though. James and Lily chose Peter Pettigrew, the rat bast-”

“Sorry. They chose Peter because they knew people would think they’d choose me. This was, any danger associated with being the Potter’s Secret Keeper would fall on me, and people would try to get me to admit where they were, not Peter.

“But Peter turned out to be a lying rat-faced son of a bitch who told You-Know-Who where they were.”

“And people thought you had done it.” John guessed.

“Yeah. Didn’t help that I tried to hunt Peter down and demand answers and justice either. Peter, in the cleverest moment of his life, pretended he hunted me down, demanded to know why I’d done it, and then blew up the street we were on to escape. Before he did so, he cut off his finger, to leave some evidence he’d been ‘killed’ in the explosion. Then he turned into a rat to get away.” Sirius looked less than comfortable for the first time since they’d seen him. “So technically I’m a criminal in the run. But I didn’t do anything wrong! And I’d never hurt Harry.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone this story?” Gazala asked.

“They didn’t give me a chance! My family- they were all awful pureblood idealists. It wasn’t too surprising to them that I would have turned out the same way. Besides, no one wanted another long drawn out trial and the wizarding world was too ecstatic about the death of You-Know-Who to care too much about an infringement of justice.”

“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” John asked. “You could have betrayed them and are just now claiming otherwise.

“If that we’re the case, I would like to think I’m smarter than to tell you about the war at all. Besides, I’ve been here for weeks, I could have snatched Harry any time before this if I wanted to hurt him, but I didn’t. I’m hoping that’s enough for you to trust me.”

Gazala and John exchanged looks, silently agreeing that he had a point, and that they were simply going to have to trust him at this point.

“Tell us more.”

So they spent hours that night talking about the wizarding world, the war with Voldemort, What Sirius knew of the prophecy and Voldemort’s downfall.

Often people think the only thing that can bond people in a night is some death defying task, but friendships can also be formed when three people go through some life changing truths together.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning Harry woke up early in his excitement, despite his late night. He bounded out of his toddler bed and to Gazala and John’s room.

“Padfoot! Padfoot!” He shouted excitedly. John woke and chuckled at Harry’s enthusiasm.

“Yes, Harry, Padfoot is still a person. Let’s go see him and not wake your mother.”

Harry cheered and John picked him up and carried him downstairs to the guest room, where Gazala and John had insisted Sirius sleep now that they knew he was a person and not a dog.

“Padfoot!” Harry cheered as soon as he saw Sirius lying on the bed. Sirius startled awake, reaching for something before he realized what was happening and smiled weakly at the two of them.

“Harry!” He enthused, standing up and reaching out for Harry. Harry eagerly went to his arms. Sirius buried his face in Harry’s hair and John wanted to give them a moment to reunite, but wasn’t sure how.

“So is if a thing all magic people can do? Turn into dogs?” John finally asked.

“No, some people turn into different animals. And some people can’t do it at all. You have to learn and it’s pretty difficult. Not everyone can. Harry’s bio dad was a stag.”

“Wow.” John said, imagining that.

“Yeah.” Sirius said, a sad look on his face. Harry frowned at him.

“Padfoot, wo Moony?” Sirius frowned at the unfamiliar word.

“Where.” John helpfully supplied.

“Moony’s away. He’s busy.” Sirius was drawing a blank.

“Wo Womtail?” Sirius held back a growl at this question.

“Wormtail is mean. He’s gone now.” John provided. Harry frowned but accepted the answer.

“Wo Daddy And Mumma?” John took in a breath. It had been a while since Harry had asked after his birth parents, but it still happened occasionally. John took Harry back from Sirius and bounced him a little.

“Remember Harry, they’re going to be gone for a while. They’re watching out for you though.” John wasn’t sure he believed in an afterlife, but it helped Harry, being so young, to have an idea that his birth parents were still taking care of him in some way.

“I’m… gonna head out for a while.” Sirius said abruptly, and shifted into a dog and ran out. Harry whined, but John felt for Sirius. It had to be hard to talk about still, especially after being in prison with no one to talk to about it before now.

“C’mon Harry, let’s get breakfast.”

-

Time passed. Harry grew up, and as he did, Gazala and John relaxed about Sirius. They began to trust him more and more, as more opportunities for him to harm Harry came and went unused.

Sirius, now that he was being fed regularly, looked and acted much better. He one day confessed to Gazala and John that he’d escaped Azkaban the minute he relaxed no one was coming to rectify the mistake and free him. A part of him had wanted to stay there, feeling it was his fault Lily and James were dead, since he’d been the one to suggest they use Peter in the first place, but a larger part of him had wanted to find his godson and raise him.

And now, he was getting the opportunity. He almost never got alone time with Harry, because the Stevens’s could hardly explain to the neighbors why they were leaving their toddler alone with only a dog for company.

They would have introduced him to friends and neighbors as a friend of Harry’s birth parents, but shorty after Sirius confessed the whole story to them, Muggle authorities were conscripted into chasing after Sirius as well, and then there was no way they could let him out.

Sirius searched the Wizarding world for Wormtail and for ways he could go about undetected. Eventually he found an obscure old steel that would help him go around and search for Wormtail without getting caught.

This was about when Harry was five and starting kindergarten. Sirius desperately wanted to find Peter before Harry got to Hogwarts, wanting to be there to see him off, and to be able to be with him when he returned to the wizarding world.

Luckily, the spell he found would at least allow him to enter some places, if not all of them.

The spell was questionable magic. It was old and rarely used nowadays, but it wasn’t inherently dark. People just didn’t like it because it could alter someone’s appearance drastically, allowing for a person to evade authorities.

It required blood to use it. It would use one’s, family history, and switch one’s appearance around to look as they might have had the traits they’d inherited from their parents been slightly different. So, for example, when Harry demanded to use it because he saw how “funny” it made Sirius look, it gave him his mother's red hair and his father's dark eyes. It also changed his feature so he didn't resemble James quite as much. He was still the son of Lily and James Potter, if one was looking for it, but he had a much more blended resemblance to the two now.

Sirius has to leave the room after casting the spell on him.

Sirius, on the other hand, still looked pretty similar, a fact he joked was caused by the inbreeding of pureblood family. At least, he looked similar in facial features. His eyes kept their gray and his features stayed aristocratic, but his hair was the biggest change. All of a sudden, it was the recessive blond than his usual black.

Ultimately, that was enough for him to escape the house as a human, though he couldn’t get away with going to the wizarding world too often, as people would eventually start to notice this man who looked like a Black, but wasn’t any one on record.

Sirius was despondent for a while about his failure to get into the wizarding world, until Gazala suggested he build a life in the Muggle world until they could find a more permanent solution.

Sirius has some questionable contacts from back in the days of the war, and he contacted one of them who he knew wouldn’t recognize him like this and asked for a new identity.

Soon Sirius Orion Black, a wanted criminal, became Oscar Owen Mayberry, a police detective.


End file.
